New Canon SX740 HS point & shoot offers 4K video and 40x optical zoom

Well, we knew it wouldn’t be long before 4K started to trickle down to lower end cameras. It’s been around in phones for years already. And even though plenty of DSLRs and mirrorless cameras still only shoot 1080p, point & shoots need to play catch up to compete.

And here comes Canon with the SX740 HS. It features a 40x f/3.3-6.9 optical zoom lens, equivalent to 24-960mm field of view on a full frame sensor. It’s also capable of shooting 4K UHD video, 20.3MP stills with a 10fps manual focus burst mode (7.4fps servo AF), and it only costs $399.

On paper, it’ an impressive little camera for such a low price. And replaces the SX730 HS announced last year. It retains much of the same features, but with the addition of 4K video, and faster continuous shooting frame rates.

It’s available in both black and silver, and the tilting LCD flips all the way up, as you can see above. So, it could be a nice little vlogging machine if the microphone doesn’t suck. Vlogging will often rely on having decent face detection autofocus, too, but as it also supports manual focus, it may not be much of a problem if the AF is terrible. And manual focus also offers focus peaking.